Jen Latham is a 21 year old Media student living in Nottingham. Her first festival was in Leeds back in the millennium fearing year of 1999.

When I think ‘music festival’, I think... lack of hygiene, cold beans for every meal and a hell of a lot of noise, all for the pleasure of having your stuff nicked while you try to go for a sly whiz up against a tree or in your case a little squat amongst the bushes. How right am I?
Wrong in every way…

(Uncomfortable silence)

Ok, let’s start again… what made you go to the Leeds festival?
I’m really into my music and the line up that year was unmissable, Rage Against The Machine and Oasis were headlining and Stereophonics, Placebo and Slipknot were playing too - they were some of my favourite bands at the time so I had to go.

Were they worth seeing?
Absolutely amazing, and seeing them with so many people who love it too and then all of you heading off to do something else on the same high… It’s brilliant!

Jen Latham

I dread to think what drugs you were on! How long were you there for?
Not that kinda high. I didn’t do any drugs, didn’t need to, but I’d be lying if I said no one else was, in fact it was easier to get drugs than bottled water at times.

We got there on Thursday to get a good camp space, and the bands played over the whole weekend and then it was back to reality on Monday.

Of course you didn’t do drugs! By good camp space do you mean anywhere not covered in dog mess?
No, we got a space close to the main arena by the main walk way, so we got to meet everyone as they were coming and going, it was the perfect position.

How many of you went?
There were six of us - two of my best friends from home and some of their friends who I didn’t really know but got really close over that weekend.

You’re bound to get close to people if the six of you were sharing a two-man tent…
Actually we had an old brownie tent that could sleep up to 15, so we all had a lot of space.

Since you kinda just owned up to stealing a brownie tent, (to which I must say for the record, shame on you) it brings me on to the subject of theft, isn’t it rife at festivals?
To be honest nothing got stolen from me on my first time and I’ve only had one experience of it since where someone tried to steal my wallet from my bag, while I was dancing.

What happened?
Some girl came up to me being really friendly and started chatting, asking for a sip of my drink and that, meanwhile some guy was reaching into my backpack, luckily my friend saw and stopped him, but the girl I was talking to ran off, she was obviously in on it. Can you believe her cheek?

Yeah, what kind of world are we living in when even thieves try and deceive us?
You’re not funny.

Sorry… but apart from that experience you didn’t feel like you had to keep your eye on your stuff all the time, when you left your tent etc?
Obviously you take all your valuables like money and phone, around with you the whole time, and then use a bit of common sense bringing clothes that your not that fussed about going missing cos its always a risk.

I’d never bring any of my best clothes to a festival, they’d just get ruined, especially footwear, never take expensive footwear to a festival!

Why not?
This is the only bad thing about festivals, the toilets are little porter cabins, and you can imagine there is a lot of people and no maintenance staff, so when a toilet overflows… it gets really messy… and you have to go cos it's not like you can hold yourself for four days.

So you’re stepping in sh…
Yes.

And it’s on your shoes for the rest of…
Yes, so take carrier bags with you to wrap them before you head to the bog.

But the smell would be…
Too right!

So don’t go to the toilet is hygiene rule no 1. What about showering and brushing your teeth?
Teeth are easy, cos you can just rinse with water from a bottle. Some festivals have showers that you pay to use but they are communal which I wasn’t up for so I just stuck to baby wipes and deodorant the whole time.

Overflowing toilets and communal showers? Are you sure you weren’t in prison?

Jen had tired of my jokes, she made her excuses and left. And I could add annoying and sarcastic to the list of qualities on my internet date advert. Jen however did leave me these tips to for surviving a festival.